Josh Billings Quotes

L'homme n'est ni ange ni be" te, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la be" te. Man is neither angel nor beast.Unfortunately, he who wants to act the angel often acts the beast.

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.

Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.

The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.

But when to sin our biased nature leans, The careful Devil is still at hand with means; And providently pimps for ill desires.

Temptation does not make the sin, it lies ready in the heart.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

The seed of every sin is in every heart.

None of our hearts are pure, we always have mixed motives. Are self deceivers, but the worst of all Deceits is to murmur 'Lord, I am not worthy' And, lying easy, turn your face to the wall.

We usually know what we can do, but temptation shows us who we are.

This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring his fundamental ones.

It is a revenge the devil sometimes takes upon the virtuous, that he entraps them by the force of the very passion they have suppressed and think themselves superior to.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it.

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

His passion has aroused the best and the beast in man. And the beast waited for him in the kitchen.

I did not wish to bribe myself.

The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

As in the infirmity of human nature, no man's actions are always what he likes to look back upon, as there are points in which he would wish that he had acted otherwise; so every man who tells his own story is under a temptation more or less to disguise the truth; and the more in proportion as his actions have been upon a larger scale, and his faults or mistakes therefore have been more flagrant.

When a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.